Watch Ya Doin'?
Objective
The objective of this project was to create a photorealistic watch using Adobe illustrator. The watch I chose to recreate was the MVMT Men's 40 Brown Leather Strap Watch. I chose this watch because I liked the contrasting material, colors, reflections and textures and wanted to emulate these characteristics in a vector graphic.
Sketches
My sketching process is a little unconventional. Rather than creating an artistic and perfectly drawn image, I find my pen and paper are more productive when I problem solve. I do this by looking for shapes, patterns and shaded areas as well as counting and calculating. This helps me to see past the "symbol system" and truly make sense of what I am seeing. This phase is important because it allows me to break down a complex image into simple shapes that fit together. It isn't really a watch that I am creating, it is a group of shapes and colors that end up looking like a watch in the end.
Draft
This was my first draft. I was able to determine most of the shapes of the watch face and received positive feedback on the work that I had done there. I was told to add a shadow to the top left lug. I was also told to work on the watch band and continue to give it the correct shape and shading. There are sharp lines where I tried to create the right shapes but things weren't blended correctly. On the backside of the band the stitching was too simple as well. Another piece of feedback I received was to create variation in the stitches of the band by creating a few different stitches and then alternating which one was used. I was also told to smooth out the sharp corners of the watch band.
Final
After receiving feedback I added a shadow to the top lug and I added more shadows and blending to the watch band. I did this using the Gaussian Blur feature, gradients, opacity adjustments, and a lot of layering. I also made a few different stitches so that the watch stitching would have more variation and look more realistic. I also added subtle details to the backside of the watch stitching to make it more realistic looking. I smoothed out the edges of the band as well.
